


Zones Of Adventuring

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drabble Collection, Multi, Post-Canon, just wherever the wind takes me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 15,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24005365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: A series of drabbles and short ficlets originally posted on my tumblr @kravkalackin.
Relationships: Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Taako, Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 188
Kudos: 300





	1. Pies- Taako & Angus

“I don’t care that it’s 2:00 am, we need pie.”

“Sir, are you even sure if the fantasy costco is open this late?” Angus asked, watching as Taako threw on a jacket. He seemed to hesitate a moment, looking at the coat rack and back to Angus before tossing the cloak of the manta ray at him. He hadn’t brought a coat when he came to the reclaimer’s dorm for his and Taako’s magic lessons, some seven hours ago now. He wrapped the cloak around his shoulders before quickly following Taako out of the dorm. 

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you believe Garfield is capable of physically sleeping,” Taako said, and yeah okay, Angus supposed he had a point there. 

“Alright, but this can wait until tomorrow, you don’t have to make a whole pie tonight sir, it’s fine,” Angus tried to insist, but Taako was shaking his head as he stalked across the quad towards the large rectangular fantasy costco building. 

“You’ve never had pie before Agnes! Not a single kind, how does that even happen?!” Taako complained loudly, and Angus flinched some, glancing around to see if anyone was up to be bothered. Hopefully they were far enough away from the dorms now that they wouldn’t wake anyone up. 

“Well, my grandpa couldn’t eat a lot of sweets and when I was out solving crimes I never really thought to just go out and get a pie,” he tried to explain, but it didn’t seem like Taako actually cared about the why here. 

“Whatever, we’re rectifying this crime tonight,” Taako said, making his way into the fantasy costco and doing a beeline towards the grocery section. Angus trotted along after him, and there was a refrigerator section with a whole bunch of pies, but Taako walked right past it. 

“Um, I thought we were here to get pies?” he asked, but Taako didn’t even seem phased. 

“I am not about to let your first pie experience be that pre-made garbage. We’re doing home made,” Taako said, and Angus was a bit flabbergasted at that. 

“How long does it take to make a pie from scratch?” he asked, and Taako shrugged, not seeming bothered. 

“Eh, the longest part is waiting for it to cool and junk. We probably won’t really be able to eat them until the morning, but that’s even more reason to make them tonight,” Taako said. Angus didn’t argue, following him around the store while he gathered up ingredients. He was definitely getting more than just for one pie, unless he wanted to make some sort of strange, apple pumpkin chocolate key lime abomination. 

By the time they got back to the kitchen with all of the ingredients set out it was edging towards three am. Angus was used to staying up late, and it wasn’t too hard to fight off the fatigue tugging at him by listening to Taako explaining all the steps that went into making the pies. Still, their magic lesson had taken a lot out of him and ended up running late, and then they’d gotten distracted because Angus had started to explain how major illusion had been used in one of his Caleb Cleveland novels, and that had somehow led to them talking about food, which led to Taako finding out he’d never had pie, which led to this. 

He tried to stay up, but he was pretty sure he ended up falling asleep somewhere between making the key lime pie and the chocolate cream pie. 

When he woke up someone had moved him from where he’d been sitting at the counter to the couch and set him up with a pillow and blanket. It was a bit later than he normally slept in, but he guessed considering how late they’d stayed up it was understandable. 

“Morning, about time you woke up pumpkin,” Taako said, and then there was a plate being shoved into his hands. Angus blinked down sleepily at the pie, putting his glasses back on after a moment. 

“Are you calling me pumpkin, or the pie?” he asked, Taako rolling his eyes heavily at that. It was a pumpkin pie in his hands though, so he couldn’t really blame him.

“Please god, I have to deal with enough puns from those two chucklefucks, I don’t need them from you too. Just eat the goddamn pie,” Taako said. 

“Is it okay to have pie for breakfast?” he asked, and Taako was groaning in annoyance now. 

“You’ve gone long enough without pie to earn this privilege, just do it there are three other pies you need to try,” Taako said, and right, Angus had nearly forgotten about that. He kind of considered drawing it out even longer to bother Taako some more but he gave in, eating a forkful of the pie. 

“This is really good sir!” he said, quickly taking another bite. 

“Hell yeah it is. Now slow down, like I said there are three more pies,” Taako told him, and Angus was starting to get the feeling that this might’ve been too many pies. 

“Sir, I don’t think I can eat that many, especially not first thing in the morning,” he said, but Taako just shrugged. 

“You can try all of them, that’s all that matters,” Taako said, and Angus guessed he could do that. 

“Um, thanks for making these for me sir, you really didn’t have to,” he said, and Taako just waved a hand dismissively before going back over to the kitchen and cutting another slice. 

“Eh, don’t mention it. Food’s important.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah I figured it'd about time I start uploading some of the drabbles I have over on tumblr into a collection here. I've got a lot so expect fairly frequent updates, just whenever I feel like tossing one up honestly. Some of these ficlets might have multiple parts, depending on how enraptured with an idea I was. I'll try and make it clear what fics have parts with the chapter titles. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!


	2. Flower Shop- Taakitz

“Do you have anything that says ‘fuck you and the dick you rode in on’ explicitly?” 

Kravitz coughed, not sure what he was choking on but _something_ had certainly lodge itself in his throat. After a few moments he managed to get a hold of himself again, and when he looked back at that man who’d just blurted out whatever that was, he simply looked amused. Kravitz was pretty damn sure that smile was mocking him. 

“Um, what’s the occasion?” he asked, trying to steal some semblance of normalcy back into this exchange. He sincerely doubted how successful he was going to be with that.

“I hate the dude my friend started dating, I thought it’d be a good way to get that across,” the customer said casually. 

“Uhuh,” Kravitz said slowly, not sure what he expected from that, but it seemed like as good of an answer as he was going to get. He turned towards a catalog of different flowers they had available for bouquets, and some of the flowers had little meanings written in, like pink roses meaning thanks and white carnations meaning pure love. 

There certainly wasn’t anything that said the exact message this person wanted to get across. 

“That might be a little difficult to say with flowers,” he mumbled after a moment. 

“Can you just shape the bouquet like a huge dick instead? Just like, the most phallic flowers you can possibly imagine. Merle will like that for a whole fucking lot of reasons,” he said, and Kravitz couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that. He had worked here a long time and this was the most unusual request he’d gotten by far. 

“I suppose so? I have to admit I haven’t done one in that shape before, so time will tell how it’ll come out,” he said. This was utterly ridiculous, he couldn’t stop smiling. 

“I have faith you can pull it off. Don’t let me down my man,” he said. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, turning back towards the catalog to try and figure out which flowers fit as ‘the most phallic imaginable.’ “Well, it should be done in a few hours if you want to get some shopping or something done in that time. Could I get a name?” he asked. He didn’t expect this dude to come over and sit on the counter, but he hadn’t expected anything about this man thus far. 

“It’s Taako, and I ain’t got shit to do and Lup’ll kill me if I come home with any more hats, so I think I’ll just sit here and watch you work if that’s cool,” he said easily. 

“Yes, I suppose that’s quite alright.” 


	3. Taakitz- Who?

Kravitz wasn’t very good at separating his personal and professional life yet. Just having a personal life was still something so new to him, after so long. Still, he’d told himself that he was going to make an attempt, because despite everything he really liked Taako. The elf had thrown his afterlife into a complete whirlwind and it had all happened so fast. Not that he was complaining, far from it. 

They’ve really only been dating for a few months now though, which was basically nothing in comparison to how long Kravitz had been around. 

He blamed that on the reason why he’d brought it up, but if he was being completely honest with himself, he was just insanely curious. Sometimes he felt like he knew absolutely nothing about Taako. 

“Hey, can I ask you something? It’s work related, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you,” Kravitz asked one evening. They were just relaxing in Taako’s room on the moon base. They’d both had a rare unexpected night off, too short notice to really plan anything but it was wonderful none the less. 

“Well, when you preface it like that my guy you’re gonna make a dude nervous, but yeah shoot,” Taako said easily. 

“You really don’t have to answer, I can understand if it’s someone you want to protect, but I still have to ask,” Kravitz said. 

“Dude, now I really need to know what you’re going on about, because you’re making like no sense.” 

“Who’s Lup?” 

“What?” Taako asked, and he looked caught off guard and confused, and Kravitz couldn’t say he was entirely surprised by that. 

“Like I said, you don’t have to tell me, I’m just curious if you do know her,” he tried to assure Taako, but the elf was just shaking his head. 

“No, no I mean, what the fuck? What did you just say?” he asked again, still looking absolutely bewildered. 

“Um, who’s Lup Taaco? It’s just that the name is another bounty in my book, and this one is marked as a lich, and I felt it was too much of a coincidence not to at least ask,” he explained. It didn’t seem to help at all though, if anything Taako just looked even more freaked out. 

“I don’t. What are you _saying_ man? I don’t fucking understand,” he insisted, and this was getting strange, even for Taako. 

“Taako, I’m asking if you know who Lup is,” Kravitz said as clearly as he possibly could, but Taako just got up off the bed, starting to pace around the room now. 

“There it fucking is again! You’re asking who someone is right? But you keep like, fucking, going static. On the name,” Taako said before suddenly stopping and turning back towards him. He looked spooked, and Kravitz had no idea what was going on. 

“Dear?” he asked, trying to make sure he was okay. 

“Do it again, say that name one more time for me please,” Taako said, and Kravitz just nodded. 

“Lup Taaco?” he tried, watching as the gears turned in Taako’s head. He was so smart, even if he didn’t act like it most of the time. 

“You’re dead, right? That’s why you can come up here and I can tell you about how we save the world without you being a part of the bureau?” Taako asked and Kravitz nodded once again. 

“Yes, that’s how you explained it to me, at least,” he said, and something seemed to click into place in Taako’s mind. He seemed to calm down some, coming back over to the bed and sitting down, although his thoughts were still obviously occupied. 

“Huh,” he said after a moment. “There must be another voidfish somewhere.” 


	4. Youngify- Lup and Magnus

“In my defense, it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.”

“Did it? Did it seem like a _brilliant fucking idea_ Barold?” Taako snapped, trying to take in the absolute mess in front of him. Okay, this could be fixed, they could fix this. 

“What in the world were you even trying to do?” he asked, starting to take a look at the equipment to try and piece together some way to reverse this. 

“I mean, we were able to use the light of creation to harness bonds to power the starblaster, and I was wondering what other kinds of things we could do with the two, and if we could somehow harness that energy in a way to defeat the hunger, so like-” 

“Barold why the fuck are Lup and Magnus kids now?!” he snapped, and he knew Barry was rambling because he was also panicking about this but he kinda needed some answers here.   
  
“I-I don’t know. Lup and I were testing something with bonds and well you need two people for a bond to be like, a _bond,_ and Magnus offered to help and I guess something went wrong,” Barry rambled, and Taako stopped looking at all the paperwork, his brain was too fried right now to try to make any sense of it. “I mean, worst case scenario, we only have like, four, uh, five months left in this cycle?”   
  
“Guess so,” Taako said, slumping down in a chair and looking over at his two now much smaller companions. The mini version of Magnus was standing in pretty much the exact same spot, looking wide eyed and confused and scared. Lup was- uh, shit.   
  
“Barr, where’d Lup go?” Taako asked, and Barry startled, quickly noticing the absent elf.   
  
“What? Oh, oh god. Lup? Lup where are you?” Barry started running around the room, for some reason looking under pieces of paper and notebooks like he’d misplaced a document and not an entire person.   
  
“Mags, did you see where Lup went?” Taako asked Magnus, who still seemed to be trying to process his surroundings. Was he that startled at turning into a kid? Like, Taako wouldn’t be too happy about it either, but he wouldn’t be like, frozen. Unless… oh god, please no. 

“Uh, do you mean the elf girl?” the little Magnus asked, and this wasn’t looking good. 

“Uhuh, hey Magnus, buddy, what’s my name?” he asked, and he could see Magnus looking him over for like, a name tag or something.

“Ipre?” he guessed, which uh, that was on his robe, so points for that. That pretty much confirmed it though, damn it. They were like, literally goddamn kids. Or at least were kids mentally as well as physically, which explained why Magnus looked so freaked about the situation.

“Nah, it’s Taako. Where did the little elf girl go?” he asked, and Magnus pointed over to a cabinet. Taako pushed himself up from the chair and strolled over and opened it, and yep, one small elf hiding inside. He was fully prepared for the kicking and scratching as he reached in and hefted her out. 

“Let go of me! Leggo! I will _bite_ you! Where’s my brother?” she yelled, thrashing around in his arms. 

“You just threatened to bite him, now calm the fuck down,” he said, managing to twist her around so that she was facing him and he could hold her further away from his body to minimize damage. He could see her carefully look him over before making a face. 

“You’re not Taako,” she said definitively. Barry had realized he’d gotten a hold of Lup and the full extent of the situation, and Taako could hear him carefully explaining to tiny Magnus that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Good, Taako could only deal with one kid right now, and this wasn’t even his fault. 

“I know I’m a bit more mature than you might be used to, but this is Taako,” he tried to reassure her, but she quickly shook her head. 

“That’s not it. You look like Taako and you sound like him, but you’re not Taako,” she said. 

“Well then what’s the issue if it’s not the whole age thing?” 

“You look important,” Lup said, like it was obvious. When she tried to squirm out of his hold this time, he let her. She seemed a lot calmer now, starting to look around the room. “Why would Taako be in some uh, fancy science place, with fancy important looking science people?” she asked, gesturing towards Barry then.

“Okay first of all, Barold isn’t fancy,” Taako said, glancing over at him. It looked like he managed to get Magnus to calm down by letting him beat him at arm wrestling, that was cute. 

“Whatever future fake Taako. Point still stands, Taako and I aren’t important,” she said it like it was just a casual fact, and yeah. Yeah, she looked maybe 11. Probably a little after their aunt died, they’d been with caravans for a bit at that age. 

They definitely hadn’t been important then. The idea of ever getting anywhere in life at that point was reserved pretty exclusively for make pretend fantasies. 

“Well shit Lulu, have I got some news for you.” 


	5. Taakitz- Airlock

“How have you made it this long without someone throwing you out an airlock or something?” 

“Well that’s an easy one homie, I haven’t,” Taako replied happily, in the same joking tone Kravitz had used. He’d just led his slightly drunk stumbling boyfriend out of the rather fancy restaurant they were just politely asked to leave, and it took Kravitz a moment to parse that. 

“Excuse me?” he asked, and Taako just waved a hand dismissively, the other one still draped over Kravitz’s shoulders to keep him standing. 

“Yeah uh, it was cycle um, 36? The plane that was using the light to let em travel to other planets. They said uh, fuck, some lie about it being kept up in a space station, and on the way up cha’ boy got ya know, tossed out an airlock. That uh, that wasn’t a fun one, yeah,” Taako explained, mumbling more as he went on. Kravitz couldn’t help but stare in slight horror, but no, that sounded familiar now. There was so much they’d learned from the voidfish, most of it stayed in the background until it was brought up, like this. 

Like learning all of the horrible ways his boyfriend had died. 

“Which death was that,” he asked, stopping when Taako pulled them to a halt so he could take off the heels that kept causing him to stumble. 

“Uh, second I think? No wait, it was the third. The first two Lup and I were together, that was my first one alone,” he said and Kravitz nodded. Taako could walk easier now with his shoes off, but he still kept an arm around his waste, holding him close. 

“That must’ve been awful,” he said, but Taako shrugged. 

“It was fast, the fast ones are always better,” he said, and there was some part of Kravitz that hurt deep inside knowing that Taako was speaking from experience. He of all people was painfully aware of just how many times Taako had died. 

It felt a bit unbelievable, to think that not too long ago he’d seen those numbers written down and had felt nothing but indignation and anger at the thought of cheating death so many times. Now it just made him wish there was some way he could go back and keep Taako from being forced to suffer so much. 

“Don’t gotta worry about that anymore now though, do I? Hey, does this dating death thing come with any perks? Do i get to custom order my demise? Because you best believe I’ve got some opinions,” he asked, and Kravitz couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

“Am I not a perk enough?” he joked, and Taako leaned even more heavily into him. 

“Yeah alright, you got me there,” Taako said with a grin. It was quiet for a moment as they walked, Kravitz carefully steering the both of them in the clearest path for Taako to walk barefoot. 

“You’re not able to custom order your death,” Kravitz said after a moment. “But I promise, I’m not ever going to let you suffer like that again,” he added. That wasn’t a promise he could make as a reaper, a person’s natural death wasn’t something they were to mess with.

It was however, a promise he was absolutely willing to make as Taako’s boyfriend.


	6. Taako and Angus- Siblings

“Ouch.”

“I’m not sure what you expected little man,” Taako said, ignoring Angus’s complaint to continue untangling the kid’s hair. He wasn’t sure what the fuck he’d gotten into, but it seemed intent on solidifying as fast as possible. 

“Well, what I had expected sir was that I would be able to remove the trap without it exploding if I could put on a new counter weight fast enough. I hadn’t thought there would be a weight _and_ a trip wire though, that seemed a little excessive,” Angus answered, sounding chipper as anything. Taako rolled his eyes, pausing his brushing. 

“Rinse,” he said, and Angus followed suit, ducking his head into the sink for Taako to run water through his hair. They were making progress, but Taako was sorely tempted to shave the whole thing off. 

After a minute Angus pulled his head back out, sitting on the stool Taako had drug into the bathroom. Once he was situated Taako started brushing out the ends again, slowly but surely making progress. He cursed under his breath as he started working on a particularly nasty goop of this stuff. Yeah, they were gonna be stuck here all night if Angus wanted to keep his hair. God, his arms were gonna be sore as fuck tomorrow. 

“Hey Taako?” Angus spoke up after a moment, wincing slightly as Taako managed to get through the next tangle. 

“Hmm?” he hummed, starting to get into the zone now. 

“Why are you so nice to me?” Angus asked, and Taako swore he didn’t mean to slip with the comb like that. “Ouch,” he added, not seeming too phased by that. 

“Don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about pumpkin,” Taako said, and that was probably a bad time for sweet nicknames. 

“Well, you taught me magic, and you don’t mind when I hang out in your dorm, and you help me out a lot. You were even the first one to trust me back on the train, remember? I know you don’t really like people very much so I was just curious,” Angus said, kicking his legs back and forth, obviously getting bored at having to sit in one place. Taako would have to grab him a book or something soon to keep him occupied, if he didn’t want more questions like this. 

Taako didn’t say anything for a moment, continuing to work on Angus’s hair. He could just not fucking answer. 

He was way too goddamn soft with this kid, he swore. 

“First of all, don’t you tell a single fucking soul, alright?” he said, and Angus quickly nodded. Taako’s comb getting stuck that time was no fault of his own. 

“Ouch! Yes of course sir,” he said, and Taako rolled his eyes at that. 

“I guess… I always kinda wanted a sibling, or something. And you’re enough of a smart mouth little brat to fit the bill pretty well,” Taako said, almost surprising himself by saying the truth. Angus didn’t respond, and Taako was more scared about that than he rightfully should be. 

“You really think of me like a little brother?” Angus asked, sounding all hopefully and touched. The next pass through his hair with the comb was a bit rougher than it probably needed to be. 

“Yep, and if you ever tell anyone that I’m leaving your hair like this,” he said, and even though Angus was faced away from him Taako could still tell the kid was grinning like crazy. 

“I won’t! I can keep a secret!” Angus said. Taako rolled his eye, but he couldn’t help but smile a bit too. 

It was true though. Some part of him had always wished he had someone there with him, out on the road. Someone who would have his back no matter what stupid bullshit he got into. 

He didn’t. But there was something kind of nice about being that for someone else. 


	7. Lucretia and Angus- Accent

“Madame Director, where did you grow up?” Angus asked, and it was a simple enough question. Lucretia didn’t even bother glancing up from the report she was filling as she answered automatically. 

“Down in Neverwinter,” she said, expecting that to be the end of it. It wasn’t uncommon for Angus to ask questions that seemed to have no real follow up, the boy’s mind always working and making connections, sharper than his age would betray. 

“You don’t have to lie madame,” Angus said, a breezy, casual tone to his voice. This time Lucretia paused, glancing up from her work at the child. He was sitting in a corner of her office, flipping through a book with a bored expression on his face like he hadn’t just accused her of lying. 

“Why would you think I’m not telling the truth?” she asked instead of changing her answer. 

“You have an accent,” Angus replied, like it was obvious. As far as Lucretia could tell, it very much wasn’t obvious. 

“Do I now?” she asked, trying to sound like she was more amused by this than anything. A part of her was, but a larger part of her was on guard. Angus didn’t seem to think too much of this now, clearly just asking on a mild curiosity. He was a smart boy though, there was a reason she had decided to keep him close. 

“Yeah. It’s not really noticeable most of the time, but it shows on some words more than others,” he said, flipping through to another page in his book. “Taako, Merle and Magnus all have the same accent too, but when I asked them where they grew up I couldn’t find anywhere they said on any maps. So I thought I’d ask you,” Angus explained, and Lucretia felt her grip tighten ever so slightly on her staff, down below her desk. 

If it wasn’t for the voidfish she had hidden in her back office, she was sure Angus would have been able to make a connection there already. 

“You’re a smart boy Angus,” she said, and she could see a smile spread across his face at the praise. “My home… doesn’t exist anymore. It was destroyed, by the relics. I take it the same happened to our three reclaimers,” she said, and at least she could take solace in the fact that she was speaking nothing but the truth there. Angus seemed to think this answer over for a moment before nodding, finding it acceptable. 

“That’s too bad madame director,” he said, and she nodded in agreement. 

“Yes, I suppose it is,” she said, biting back on an accent from a world that had died a long century ago.


	8. Blupjeans Red Robe Swap Pt. 1

Barry keeps his mouth shut in Phandalin. Instead of running his trap he stands paralyzed in terror, and Taako’s the one who drags him along to the well. The umbrastaff ends up getting dropped in the escapade, left to be destroyed with the rest of Phandalin. 

Lup reforms and is barely manages to keep herself together until she realizes that Barry isn’t here. If he died in the fire his lich form would be here, and it wasn’t, so the rest of her family had to survive too. She finds his cave, reads through his notes and plans and slowly figures out what’s going on, finds out what his plan is. 

She can’t regrow her body. Barry’s is still in there, and so she’ll just have to wait. 

Barry’s coin told him to never go to the moon. It told him that he was better off dying than staying there. He didn’t get that at first, and even though he was on the moon now he understood it even less. He liked the people here. They made the whole in his chest feel a little less cavernous. He didn’t particularly want to leave them, and he certainly didn’t want to die. 

So he ignores that particular piece of advice. He does his best as a reclaimer, although he’s not very good at it. He doesn’t really have a specialty. He tried to be a fighter, but it didn’t come naturally to him. He finds himself watching Taako’s magic with jealousy and intrigue. He’d never managed to learn the arcane arts before though, so he didn’t see how he could at his age. 

At least, until he started looking into the warlock brand of magic. It fits well, the clumsy fighting he’d picked up meshing with the powerful shocks of arcane energy. 

Lup sees her brother, her husband, and two of her best friends in the office of a man she just killed. She did it to protect them, but there’s fear on their faces. They don’t know who she is, they don’t remember her. The thought alone is almost enough to break her, but she forces herself to keep it together. Tells herself she can fix this. 

“Please, don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you,” she pleads, and is surprised despite herself when it works. When they’re willing to listen to her. She makes illusions of the people who’ve fallen to the grand relics as she speaks, pain and guilt in her voice. 

“This want, this hunger, it’s not the true nature of man. We can stop it. There’s so much you don’t know, so much you don’t remember. Be careful of who you trust. This is your first lesson,” she says. They look confused, but she sees the way Barry’s eyes light up when she brings up lost memories. She doesn’t stick around to talk to him about it, she can’t. 

Barry is fascinated by the Red Robe. Lucretia warns about trusting her, insisting she’s evil, that she’ll lie and do whatever it takes to trick them. But Barry knows there’s parts of his life that he’s forgetting. He knows hearing her voice makes his heart sing, and he saw the way it almost brought tears to Taako’s eyes the first time she spoke. There’s something missing, but he can’t piece it together. 

She tries to explain more in Lucas’s lab, and Barry tries his best to listen, to make sense of it all. No matter what he does though there’s this block. He can’t ask her directly, he knows Lucretia would never allow it. There’s more important things to worry about in the immediate moment too, what with the grim reaper trying to arrest them. Barry can’t even understand all the crimes that are lobbied at him. None of this makes any sense, and he comes so close to dying so many times that night. 

Lup waits for them outside Refuge, terrified of what they might change. When they finally get out, they tell her they refused the relic. When she asks if they trust her, she’s met with silence. The most important people in her life, the only ones keeping her who she is, stare at her with distrust and uncertainty. She falls to her knees, clutching her head and struggling to keep it together. 

“Taako, Barry, I don’t know what to do,” she says, and she doesn’t expect an answer from them, not really. She certainly doesn’t expect Barry to kneel down in front of her, holding out a hesitant hand to help her up. 

“It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just... there’s still a lot we don’t know,” he says, and Lup reaches to take his hand, only managing to stop herself at the last minute. She knows that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to make herself let go, and they can’t yet. Instead she forces herself to take a breath, floating up again with as much poise as she can muster. 

“I understand. There’s so much I want you all to know, but all I can say for certain is that the hunger is almost here. The next time we meet, I’m going to need you to trust me,” she says, forcing herself to leave before she says too much. 

Barry hates Wonderland. It stirs something visceral in his gut, necromantic energies eating away at him from the inside out. The liches are playing with him, he can tell. There’s something about him that they find amusing, and each time he makes that black smog appears it feels like a loss. He doesn’t want to die in Wonderland, but he doesn’t want to play by these damn liches games any more either. 

Ever since they entered the place, there’d been a feeling. This one was much more pleasant. It was just a force against his hand, holding it. Squeezing on occasion in clear sympathy, never letting go. Barry held back just as tight, even if it felt like it hampered his fighting some. Not that it seemed to matter, the other three boys were taking a much worse beating than him, and he didn’t know why either. 

Then they go into the healing game. He’s doing the best out of the four of them, while Taako is on death’s door. Barry starts by giving some of his life force to Magnus, and then to Merle. When he looks at Taako last, he sees the moment his best friend realizes what he’s about to do. Hears him start to shout at him to not be a dumbass, but it’s too late, he’s already pushed the button. He’s done playing by these liches’s rules. If they wanted to keep him alive, tough luck. 

Lup’s heart hurts watching her family go through this torment. She finally gives in, holding Barry’s hand throughout the process, unable to bring herself to let go. Even when he falls during the healing game, she doesn’t let go. She doesn’t need to. His body crumples but she’s there, holding his lich form as the memories come rushing back to him. 

She hates seeing him die, but she’s overjoyed when he finally looks at her with recognition. When he actually calls her by name. Suddenly they’re both laughing, and the whole display brings forth the heads of Wonderland. 

It’s not hard to bring them down with her family at her side. 

She’s sure they’ll be able to take down the hunger the same way, together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 will be posted next!


	9. Blupjeans Red Robe Swap Pt. 2

If this didn’t get him killed it was absolutely going to get him kicked out of the bureau if anyone ever found out. Probably locked up or killed (by the bureau, not the lich) if he was being honest. By all accounts, this was a terrible idea and he should turn back before he got in too deep. 

Despite that, Barry found himself forging ahead. It had been almost a year since he woke up one day, confused with barely any memories, in a cave he could only vaguely remember the whereabouts of. Listening to a coin telling him about a lost love and urging him on a path that ended up leading right to the bureau. 

In his heart he knew this wasn’t the path he was supposed to be on. It filled the hole in his chest but it didn’t close it over. There was still a piece missing, still parts of his life that couldn’t connect. 

Well, that and the fact that the coin had explicitly told him to stay away from the moon. He hadn’t, but still. That one was a pretty dead giveaway that he was doing something wrong here. 

And the only place Barry could think of that might have the answers he needed was the Red Robe. He just didn’t know where to find her. 

He’d been thinking for weeks, trying to figure out some way to track her down. His magical abilities weren’t super helpful in that regard though. He didn’t really know who she was either, so he couldn’t do anything that way. She seemed to appear when she wanted to, and she was always gone before they could get any real answers. 

The memory had come to him when he wasn’t trying to think of it. He’d actually been in the shower, his brain wandering to random things. It felt exceedingly stupid, but the thought came to him as casual as anything. There had been an actual robe just like the one the Red Robe wore in that cave he woke up in, wasn’t that weird? 

The thought had almost caused him to slip when he finally processed it. Ever since then he’d been waiting for a moment to try and sneak down there. To try and find that cave again, to find some possible clue about what all this meant. To maybe even find her. 

That’s where he was now. Clumsily making his way through the forests outside Phandalin, trying to remember which way to that damn cave. It had been so long ago now, and his brain wasn’t exactly in the right headspace last time he left to take in a lot of details. He’d been searching for over an hour now, and was pretty damn sure he’d been going in circles. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice he instantly recognized said from behind him, and if the director was to be believed the voice should fill him with dread. Instead it was hard to fight off a smile as he spun around, the spectral form of the Red Robe floating there, the ends of her cloak flicking out like wildfire. 

“I know, I’m sorry but I- I’m looking for something,” he said, and he should be afraid of this person. This lich. He knew enough about liches to know they were bad news, but it was hard to feel anything but drawn to her. He’d be worried about this being the effect of some charm spell if it hadn’t lasted much longer than any charm should. 

“And what’s that?” she asked, her voice suspicious. On guard. A shaky wall built around her, reformed after the breakdown they had seen her have in Refuge. 

“You,” he said, an equally serious tone to his voice. There was a moment where the Red Robe stared at him, and she didn’t have a traditional face, instead a light like a faraway campfire flickering in her hood. 

And then suddenly any composure she had before vanished, the lich doubling over, her robe flickering out around her wildly as she attempted to hide what constituted as her face in skeletal hands. 

“Holy shit! You can’t just say things like that! How the hell am I supposed to react?” she asked, shouting and almost sounding flustered, which was the last thing Barry expected. It was so surprising it actually got a nervous laugh out of Barry, who rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. 

“Sorry, I didn’t- didn’t mean to overstep a line or anything,” he apologized. It was weird, how easy it was to talk to her. 

“Oh, you definitely didn’t,” she said, having seemed to regain her composure, actually floating closer to him now. Very close. 

“Um,” he manged, taking a step back in his nerves. It wasn’t ‘this terrifying creature might kill me’ kind of nerves though. They were very similar but still had a distinct difference. It seemed to be enough to throw the Red Robe off though, immediately stopping in her tracks and straightening up into a more serious posture again. 

“Fuck. That’s not- sorry. I should go. You should go. We both need to leave, now,” she insisted, and Barry quickly shook his head. 

“But I’ve been trying to find you for so long! Please, I know there’s something missing, and I know you know what it is. I need answers,” he said, and the Red Robe actually looked pained as she moved back from him. 

“I know, but not now. Soon, I promise,” she assured him, and he didn’t want to wait. Whatever was going on he was tired of waiting, he wanted to know. He wanted to help. 

“Can you at least tell me your name yet?” he asked, because it felt so wrong just calling her the lich and the red robe. She didn’t feel like some impersonal mythic figure. She felt familiar, like a warm light in his chest. She felt like home. 

“Sorry, not yet. Say hi to Taako for me, if you can,” she said, and before Barry could even blink she was gone. Barry cursed under his breath, running over to where she had been, but there was nothing there. He wanted to call out to her, but he didn’t have a name to call. 

With a sigh, he hit the button on his bracer. He told himself to be patient. She said soon. 

He just had to wait a little longer. 


	10. Barry- Souls

The dangerous thing about becoming a lich was the soul. The very essence of your being, the force that made you _you._ Empowering something like that with raw arcane energy, of course it was difficult, nearly downright impossible to keep all the little things like your mind and your morals intact. 

Failure would be absolute. It would completely destroy the soul, the individual lost. 

Barry of course knew the risk when he first came up with the plan. The decades they’d spent running had been fraught with danger, but never with a threat so personal. Not with something that could be so permanent. 

But he also knew his own soul, probably more than most people did. 

And he knew that it had stopped being his a long time ago. 

The first little was taken away during that very first cycle. The despair of losing their home still strong, as well as the denial thinking that there was maybe some way to get back. Barry had thought it would be all he could focus on, some way to try and fix this mess and get back home. 

Instead he found himself laughing cautiously with the twins, slowly learning the animal language together. Instead of shrinking back from their teasing, joining in and shooting barbs back. 

The first chips of his soul had broken off the first time he managed to get the twins to buckle over in laughter, Lup wiping tears from her eyes and Taako leaning heavily against a tree. 

The next bit was lost when they had to leave Magnus behind, and even more when they realized they weren’t going to leave anyone behind ever again. 

It wasn’t something Barry strictly kept track of, because it wasn’t really something one could quantify. Every bit of the crew had pieces. Working long nights with Davenport in search for the light, quiet evenings spent reading with Lucretia. Standing side by side with Magnus in a battle, playful ribbing with Merle over the similarities in healing verses necromancy. 

Sunny days on the beach with Taako, opening his heart up to someone who he’d started to think of as family a long time ago. 

And Lup. Gods, Lup. She stole more of it than anyone, every accidental touch in the lab and tired smile like a small flame that burned it away bit by bit. Over the years she slowly and meticulously burned him away and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it but smile and stutter as he thanked her. 

He could remember every piece. The parts of him that she took when she would insist he stop working and come eat, she parts she’d wipe away as readily as she wiped tears from his eyes. She bits she couldn’t even see, her back turned to him as he watched her standing firmly, fire burning around all of them but not touching anyone but their enemies. 

And the finality of it, handing what was left of his soul to her as they held hands after a song. 

Standing on that small hill, Barry never had any fear for his soul as they started the ritual. His soul had stopped being his a long time ago, and the arcane power that coursed through his now was nothing compared to the fire his family had burned inside of it for decades now. 


	11. Taakitz- Accidental Marriage

The big problem was, Taako had not been nearly as drunk as he should have been to justify making that kind of decision. If he’d been sloshed out of his skull and couldn’t remember a damn thing that would have been fine. That would have been a hilarious story, damn remember that one time, it sure do be like that huh? 

But that wasn’t the case. No, Taako could remember it all pretty clearly. Sure, not perfect, there had definitely been a couple drinks involved. No one was making decisions totally sober. 

He could remember meeting Kravitz last night at Magnus’s bachelor party. To say Mags was excited about his upcoming marriage was putting it mildly, and the dude might have gone a bit overboard with the invitations. Kravitz had never even met him before, he was one of Barry’s co-workers, but as he sheepishly explained after a drink or two, he didn’t want to not show up only to have it be someone he should have remembered from work or something. 

It was fucking hilarious in Taako’s opinion, but so were a lot of things about Kravitz. Dude was fucking charming with a winning smile and eyes Taako wouldn’t mind getting lost in. 

Okay, maybe he could blame some of his thoughts on the alcohol, because damn. 

The point was, Taako did not expect to hit it off so well with Mr. Tall Dark and Awkward, but he’d certainly hadn’t been complaining. Kravitz certainly seemed on board as well, practically leaping at the chance to get away from the crowded party for a bit with him. In Taako’s experience, someone was only that willing to go off alone with someone they just met if they were also super into them, or they were a vampire. He checked Krav’s teeth too, so no vampire there. 

A lot of the time after that, they had just spent talking. Taako could only remember bits and pieces now, probably a combination of the drinks and having just talked so goddamn much. He swore he was near losing his voice by the end of the night, but he didn’t want to stop. It’d only been a couple hours, but he really fucking liked Kravitz. 

This was all Magnus’s fault. All his planning and shit must’ve put marriage on Taako’s mind. That was the only explanation. 

Taako groaned, nursing a hangover that wasn’t nearly as bad as it should have been, staring at the ring on one hand and his phone in the other. There were several unanswered messages on said phone, mostly from Lup, wanting to know where he’d gotten off to last night. No one had seen him since like ten and they were all worried. 

Kravitz let out an equally pained moan, his head still smothered as much as possible in his pillow. Taako couldn’t blame him for that one. It honestly seemed like the smarter option. 

Sighing, Taako was just glad no one was actually looking to see how fucking red his face had to be as he typed out a message to Lup’s barrage of texts. 

‘Hey, let mag’s know he got beat to the marriage punch. Cha’ boy’s number one on that front now’ 

God, Lup was going to fucking kill him. 


	12. Taako- Age

Taako is eight years old, and for the first time in his life he doesn’t feel completely alone. He’s living with his aunt, and he’s learning how to cook, and for once he feels happy.

(Taako is eight years old and he’s never been alone. He’s always had Lup by his side, and now is no different.)

He’s twelve, and he figures that’s old enough to travel by himself. He joins merchants and caravans and circuses. He offers to cook, finds any way to make himself useful, to make sure he won’t be thrown out on the streets. He gets very good at staying out of sight and out of mind. He’s alone, and every time he’s alone he’s scared, and he’s not sure why.

(Taako is twelve and he and Lup decide to run away together. There’s safety in numbers, and every time Lup wanders off Taako is terrified. He tells her they have to stick together, to watch each other’s back.)

Taako is one hundred and twenty two, and he can’t think of a single damn thing he’s done with his life.

(Taako is one hundred and twenty two, and he and Lup have been working and studying for years. They fucking did it, they got into the IPRE, they’re going to explore the planes, and they’re going to do it together.)

He stops keeping track of time, of the years, of anything. It blends together into a fog and for the life of him, he can’t bring himself to give a shit.

(A hundred years pass, each one meticulously written down and remembered. The faces of people left behind blur, but not the memories of his family. They’re a family now, their crew, and no matter what the cost, they’re going to get through this hell.)

Taako is still one hundred and twenty two. That doesn’t feel right, but he’s never been all that bright.

(None of them had aged a day during their voyage, but it feels like it’s catching up now. As they watch the wars. As they search for Lup. As everything they worked so hard on crumbles around them.)

He wakes up one day, sobbing. That’s not like him, he can’t think of the last time he cried. It feels like his heart’s been carved out of his chest, he feels numb. Eventually he feels too numb to cry anymore, and he pushes it all to the back of his mind.

(He killed his best friend. His family is gone. He’s truly alone for the first time in his life, and he is so fucking scared.)

Taako is still one hundred and twenty two, and even though that doesn’t feel right it doesn’t matter. He has a cooking show. He’s finally fucking made something of himself, and for the first time in over a century, he’s happy.

(He’s restless and hollow and petty. He can’t bring himself to care, and it was never this bad before. He doesn’t like this new him.)

He’s one hundred twenty six, and the tentative life he built up for himself crashes and burns in one night. He doesn’t know what happened. He never meant to kill all those people. It was a mistake, but the police would never believe him, so all he can do is run.

(He’s watched tragedies far beyond this one before. Despite that it still hurts. Still stings to his core.)

He spends years hiding, until he meets two other adventurers. He’s not sure why but he likes them. Likes them enough to stick with them all the way up to the moon.

(He missed them. He missed them so fucking much it’s so good to see his family again.)

The relics are horrible and terrifying, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to stick. It’s hard to care, even when watching the destruction first hand. It’s like the emotions slide right off like glass.

(This is all their fault. Its all their fault and for once, Taako feels connected. He cares, and he doesn’t want this world to turn to dust too. He wants to save it.)

Something is wrong, and Taako trusts no one and nothing. He never has, not really. In his mind he always knew that at the end of the day he was alone. That people would leave him. That the world wasn’t permanent.

(Taako trusts Angus to figure out what’s going on. He trusts Merle to stick with him as they work together on this. He trusts Magnus to come back. He trusts Barry’s trust in them. He trusts the voice in his head that made his heart sing and tears well up in his eyes and he doesn’t know why but _he trusts them.)_

Taako is one hundred and thirty two (two hundred and thirty two) and the world is ending (again) and he’s always (never) been alone.

He closes his eyes, feeling like his head is going to crack open as two lives fight for space in his mind. Slowly, slowly he climbs to his feet and raises the umbrastaff out in front of him.

“Ten…”


	13. Angus- Umbrellup Pet

It was pretty obvious that something was going on with Taako.

Or at least, it was obvious to Angus, but he had the distinction of being the world’s greatest detective. Still, it was clear enough to him that something weird had been going on with Taako for a little while now. It was unclear when it started, and for a while he wasn’t even sure what it was. Just something being kept hidden, some secret he was keeping from everyone. 

Secrets were weird like that. A lot of the time they’d be so easy to keep if people didn’t act strange when they had them. Angus wouldn’t have even considered the idea that Taako was hiding something if he didn’t start acting all strange and shifty out of nowhere. 

So, he started to investigate. 

It didn’t take him very long to come up with a pretty good idea of what exactly it was Taako was trying to hide from everyone. 

Angus was fairly certain Taako was hiding some type of pet. Specifically, a pet that was magical in nature. 

The main thing that tipped him off was that Taako suddenly seemed a lot more protective of his room, keeping the door locked and squinting out suspiciously whenever he left it. One time Angus knocked on his bedroom door, Taako squinted out, told him to hold a minute, and then there was the sound of what Angus was pretty sure Taako chasing something around the room for a bit. When he came back out he had his umbrastaff clutched firmly in his hand, and his hair was all disarrayed and somewhat singed. 

That pretty much settled it, and Angus wondered if Magnus had managed to talk him into helping him hide a dog or something. From what he could tell though Magnus didn’t seem to be hiding anything, so it probably wasn’t that. 

Angus had only figured it was something magical a few weeks later, on what he thought was an unrelated mystery. 

Small magical items had been going missing from Leon’s office. That was a pretty big deal, considering how the Bureau was with that sort of thing. If someone started out just stealing the little things, then it might only be a matter of time before they decided to turn and try and get one of the relics for themselves as well. So, Angus figured he’d organize a stake out. 

The first two nights came up with nothing. That wasn’t unusual, but it sure was annoying. Leon was getting frustrated and paranoid, but Angus assured him he’d catch the culprit soon. 

The third night he ended up falling asleep in his hiding spot underneath Leon’s desk. He was only lucky enough to wake up because the thief had started mumbling to himself. Angus tried to stay as quiet as he could as he peaked out. He honestly should have known from the voice, but Angus was surprised by the sight none the less. 

Taako had managed to pry open the Goshapon machine, and was digging through some of the smaller magical items. 

“No, no, eeeh maybe? Okay, what to you think, a hairbrush that changes your hair different colors based on your mood, or a bracelet that had beads full of burning hands?” Taako was asking, but Angus couldn’t see who he was talking to. There was a moment of quiet where he expected whoever he was talking to to say something. Instead he just continued like someone had after a few seconds, ‘Yeah okay, bracelet then. I personally think the hairbrush is more useless but you’ve got your fucking fire fetish or whatever.” 

Angus watched as he pocketed the bracelet, and well, that definitely solved that one. It opened up a few more mysteries however. 

“Um, sir?” Angus asked after a moment, right when Taako stood up to leave. Immediately the elf was spinning around, looking caught red handed. Which he definitely was. 

“Oh, it’s just you. What up Ango?” Taako asked, clearly trying to brush this off. 

“Sir, have you been the one stealing stuff from Leon?” he asked, and Taako shrugged, not quite able to get rid of the guilty look on his face. 

“No, that’s not- maybe. Look, it’s only the useless bullshit no one would want anyway,” he tried, and well, he wasn’t wrong. When Leon had explained to him what had been stolen Angus was a little confused about why those were items they had in the machine in the first place. Things like socks that always made the wearer slip around and glasses that made your eyesight worse. 

“That doesn’t mean you can just steal them sir,” he said, and Taako didn’t look very convinced. So Angus decided to try and different route. 

“Are you stealing them for your secret magic pet?” he asked, and yup. He was on the money for that one. He could immediately see Taako wince at being called out. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tried to lie, but it was just the two of them in Leon’s office, and Angus didn’t want to have to turn Taako in as a danger of stealing the relic. So, he needed to know the real reason he was doing these things. 

“Sir, please don’t lie to me. What kind of pet is it?” he asked, and Taako was looking a little shifty now. 

“It’s not really a… pet?” he said, although it sounded more like an ask than anything. Angus didn’t say anything, simply waiting him out. It didn’t take very long, Taako sighing after a moment. “Listen, kid’s a detective but I don’t think he’s a snitch, are you a snitch ango?” Taako said, and that first part did not seem to be directed at him. 

“I’m not a nark sir,” he said, which got a snort out of Taako. 

“Yeah, see I told you? He’ll figure it out even if we don’t tell him,” he said, and Angus was beyond curious now. He was clearly talking to someone, but Angus had no idea to who. There wasn’t anyone else in the room. They might have been invisible, but it seemed like Taako could hear their reply good enough. 

“Sir, who are you talking to?” he asked. Taako seemed to wait a moment, apparently getting some last final permission before holding up the umbrastaff. 

“My umbrella is sentient,” he said. Angus stared in dumb confusion, and then Taako held the umbrella and the magic bracelet up. Immediately the umbrella pulled itself from his hand, hovering for a moment before inverting and seeming to eat the magic item. It glowed for a moment, before buzzing around, moving to thwap Taako on the head before coming over to Angus.

Angus took a step back as the umbrella floated around him, seeming to check him out. After a moment it went, floating back into Taako’s hand. There was a soft light of another spell, and then Angus heard a voice in his head. 

_Hey kiddo, kinda counting on you to keep this secret, alright?_


	14. Blupjeans- A Kind of Curse

Barry isn’t sure what the coin expected him to find in this cave, but he could say he wasn’t that impressed. Nearly dying really wasn’t worth a big door he couldn’t open for shit, and some corpse lying in the corner. 

After spending the better part of an hour trying and failing to get the door open (the coin said he needed Gundren. Barry had not managed to get the job though, so he might have robbed the guy to get his map and a jar of blood to activate said map) he finally turned to inspect the corpse, the only other thing worth noticing in here. It was wrapped in a long red robe, and something about it made Barry sad. That was the only way he could describe it, just sad. 

He grabbed the staff from them, wincing when the body and robe crumbled into dust among the streams of red lightning. When it was over, the cave felt eerily quiet. 

“Well, that happened,” he said, taking one more look at the umbrella. It just seemed like a regular umbrella, but closer inspection showed that there was something weird about it. Barry didn’t know a lot of magic shit, he didn’t know a lot of shit in general if he was being honest, but he was pretty sure this was a magic thing. 

There didn’t seem to be anything left to find here though, not if he couldn’t get past that door. So, he went to leave. 

He was about halfway out of the cave when something fell on him from the ceiling. 

Barry barely managed to get out a yelp as he was thrown to the ground by the jelly. He felt the umbrella smash against the ground with him, getting caught and snapped between the rocks, a few bits stabbing into his shoulder for good measure. He didn’t get any time to focus on that or the fact that he was about to get eaten by a blob when suddenly the cave was engulfed in flames. He could see them, could hear them sizzling the jelly into nothing off his back, could feel their warmth but not a single flame managed to burn him. 

And he could hear laughing. Delighted, ecstatic laughter that rung around the cave like bells. When the fire died Barry managed to look up to see the source, and it was that corpse, except they were different. She was different. The apparition in front of him was still wearing that bright red robe, her hands and legs made of charred black bones, the hood pulled up over a shadowed face with only the glowing suggestion of features. 

She looked like a flame herself, and she was laughing with her arms spread out and in that moment Barry decided she was the most beautiful and terrifying thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. 

And then she looked at him, and she somehow managed to look even happier. Which made Barry all the more terrified. 

“Babe!” she shouted, suddenly diving down at him, and Barry felt arcane hands help lift him off the ground, probably assisted by some sort of levitate spell. “It’s so fucking good to see you! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get trapped. How long has it been? Where’s everyone else? God I wish I could smooch your face right now,” she said, and her bony hands were holding Barry’s face as much as they could, and as soon as his brain processed all of that he stumbled back. 

“Whoa! Uh, that’s not necessary. Appreciated, but oh damn, who are you?” he asked, and all that joy seemed to leak out of the apparition in front of him. 

“Babe?” she asked, her voice now confused and hurt. 

“It’s uh, it’s Barry,” he said, because he didn’t know how to handle this. “Is this like, a magic thing? I didn’t- this isn’t one of those, broke the curse and accidentally get married to some super magical creature things, is it? Because like, I’m not saying it’s completely off the table, but uh, a dude would appreciate some warning,” he stumbled out. She was looking at him now, staring at him, and he had no idea what she was thinking. 

“Is this Fisher?” she asked, whispered so quietly he was sure the question wasn’t actually for him. “Barry, tell me what you hear when I speak,” she said, and Barry nodded. She began to say something then, or at least, he assumed she did. He couldn’t understand a word of it. 

“Static. It just- it sounds like static,” he said, and she nodded, looking almost grim. And then her posture changed, seeming more determined as she came in close again, taking both of his hands in hers. 

“Well, I can’t tell you everything. I guess you could call it a curse, which we are going to have to break. I can tell you this though. My name is Lup, you freed me, we are officially married, and I am hopelessly and completely in love with you.” 

There was a long moment as Barry stood there, slowly letting that information sink into his brain. It was a lot to take in. It was way fucking more than he was prepared for coming to this cave, and he had no idea what to actually do with him. When he did finally manage to say something, it wasn’t much, and it came out as more of a squeak than anything. 

“Oh.”


	15. Magnus & Lucretia - Familiars

“Magnus, I was very clear there are no dogs on the moon,” Lucretia said, pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing in frustration. The large brown and black dog was bounding around her office, and took that particular moment to knock Angus to the ground, licking his face for a moment before becoming distracted with something else and running off again. 

“But familiars are allowed! I checked!” Magnus insisted, and Lucretia’s frown deepened at that. 

“Yes, familiars are permitted. A few of our seekers employ them for a variety of tasks, but I fail to see how that matters here,” she said, because it was true. Familiars could be especially handy for their seekers, and even a few of their more magically inclined guards had them. 

“He’s my familiar!” Magnus announced, reaching down and grabbing the dog as he tried to run by in a hug. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you?” he continued, ruffling his fur. 

“Magnus, you don’t know magic,” Lucretia said dryly. 

“Taako taught me! I’m super good at conjuration now!” Magnus insisted, scruffling the dog one more time before standing back up. Lucretia turned to look over at Taako, who was laying back casually on one of the couches in the corner of her office. Merle was with him, swatting the dog away every time he sniffed curiously at his wooden arm. 

“You didn’t,” she said, and Taako shrugged, not seeming bothered in the least. He was so casual in fact, that Lucretia could tell he was very much enjoying this. 

“I wouldn’t say super good my dude. He just sat in on a couple of my magic lessons with the boy detective, I refuse to claim responsibility for this,” he said, and Lucretia sighed heavily. 

“I can confirm that Madame Director, Magnus joined our lessons on his own and was very studious in learning the spell. I’m very proud of him,” Angus piped up, still cleaning his glasses from when the dog had licked them. The dog had headed over to Davenport now, and seemed a bit more cautious as he sniffed at the gnome, allowing himself to be pet without actually knocking Davenport to the ground. 

“So yeah! Familiar! He’s allowed! I think I’m gonna name him Barry,” Magnus said, and Lucretia raised an eyebrow at that, trying not to look too surprised by the name. 

“What, after fucking Bluejeans?” Taako asked, snorting at the idea. Magnus nodded though, calling the dog back over to him. 

“Yeah! I like to name my pets after people,” he explained, and Taako shrugged. 

“Fits me to. He was a douche, the dog’s a douche,” Merle grumbled, clearly not happy with any of this. 

“My dog is not a douche! He’s a good boy! Aren’t you Barry? Yes you’re a good boy! A good familiar magic doggy!” Magnus said, rubbing the dog’s stomach. Lucretia sighed, sitting back down behind her desk and pulling out a large bottle of wine from a pocket dimension, pouring herself a glass. 

A hundred years and Magnus never learned any magic. 

Of course he would have to start now. 


	16. Kravitz & Barry- Godfather prt. 1

Barry was running out of options. He’d never had many to begin with. 

He needed to become a lich when Lucretia wiped their memories. He needed to keep searching for Lup, to find her and find some way to reverse what Lucretia had done to make them forget. He needed to keep protecting this world, and every other world that was out there from the Hunger. 

And he needed to make sure his son stayed safe. It was quickly becoming clear that he couldn’t manage all of those at once, not on his own. 

He _was_ on his own though. His family didn’t recognize him. They couldn’t remember Lup. Lucretia had drawn a line in the sand, and Barry was not going to let her allow his son to grow up never hearing of his mother or his parents at all. 

But he didn’t have any other options. 

Plus, it was really hard to think while trying to fight the grim reaper. 

“Listen, bud I really don’t got time for this,” Barry said, cursing under his breath when the reaper’s attack came a little too close for comfort. He held the bundle in his arms even closer, and this was exactly what he was trying to avoid. 

“Oh well if you’re in a hurry we can just skip all the niceties and we can head straight to the astral plane. Not a problem,” the reaper said, and Barry sighed because that wasn’t what he meant at all. 

“No, look, I know what you do is real important and the whole lich thing isn’t really a good look but you gotta believe me when I say what I’m doing is too important to stop now,” Barry said, hoping the reaper would listen but knowing he probably wouldn’t. He couldn’t blame the guy, most evil assholes thought what they were doing was ‘too important.’ It just so happened that Barry’s shit actually _was._

“More important than the rules of life and death, of course! Well if you say it’s important I’ll just take your word for it,” the reaper said, sarcasm dripping from his every word. Yeah, Barry didn’t think it would work. 

“Fine, don’t believe me, but I still can’t-” Barry started, dodging another attack and sending a blast of necrotic energy at the reaper, who managed to move out of the way for the most part, a bit of his cape burning away. Before he could finish speaking though he was cut off as the bundle in his arms started shifting, stopping them both in their tracks with a cry. 

“What... is _that?”_ the reaper asked, his voice low and dangerous and angrier than Barry had heard so far. 

“It’s none of your business,” he tried to insist, holding his child closer, subtly trying to rock him to stop the crying. 

“You seem surprisingly in control of yourself, so I’m going to ask you one time to hand over the child before it gets hurt lich,” the reaper demanded. Barry could understand the outrage, he knew empirically why it looked so bad. That didn’t stop the indignation and rage that filled him at someone insinuating that he would do _anything_ to hurt his son. 

“No! Are you crazy? I’m not going to just hand over my son to you!” he snapped. 

“Lich, do not make me attack you while you’re holding a child. You won’t like how this ends,” the reaper said, and he’d said he was only going to ask Barry once. The fact that he wasn’t attacking yet probably meant he really didn’t want to endanger the infant he’d just realized was there. 

“Then don’t attack me! Just- just listen,” he tried again, because he wasn’t sure how to get out of this. He couldn’t put his son at risk. 

He already had though. Every moment he was with him was a risk, and he didn’t know how he was going to keep going. He couldn’t take him while he looked for the relics. He couldn’t bring a baby along as he searched for Lup. 

He had no idea what to do. 

“Listen to what? Why I should let you go? Why I should let a _lich_ take care of a _child?”_ the reaper asked, and it was clear he expected Barry to argue with him. To start trying to explain exactly why he should let him do those things. So he was obviously surprised when Barry slumped down, staring down at his son who had finally stopped crying. 

“No... no you’re right. I can’t- I can’t take care of him anymore,” he said, and it hurt to admit that out loud. It was true though, he couldn’t- there was no way for him to make sure both the world and his son were safe at the same time. 

When he looked up at the reaper again, he was still eyeing him suspiciously, but he’d yet to attack. There was something else in that suspicion as well, concern or worry or some such emotion. It was hard to tell if it was for him or the baby, but whatever it was it was enough to give Barry an idea. 

He was really running out of options. 

“What’s your name?” he asked, clearly taking the reaper off guard again. He paused for a moment, seeming to think it over before answering. 

“It’s Kravitz,” he said. 

“Kravitz, can I trust you?” he asked, and yeah, the reaper was lost. Barry couldn’t blame him, he doubted he’d ever dealt with a lich like him before. 

“I mean, no. You’re a lich and I’m here to drag you into the eternal stockade to atone for your crimes against death,” Kravitz said, and then he looked them over for a second longer before continuing. “But if you’re asking if I keep my word, then yes.” 

“I don’t- I don’t have a lot of options bud,” Barry said, and each word was a struggle to get out. He didn’t want to do this. He hated that he had to do this. “I can’t- I can’t come in with you. Not yet,” he continued, and the ‘yet’ clearly caught Kravitz’s attention. He kept going before he could ask though, “I still have too much I have to do. I need to find someone.” 

His son had stopped crying entirely now, having calmed down from the chaos of the previous fight. Barry wanted to apologize to him for what he was about to do. 

“I can’t keep him safe. Not while I’m doing all of this,” he said, and the reaper was staring at him, cautious and confused. 

“Please, Kravitz, if I give him to you, will you promise me you’ll protect him? Keep him safe and just- just let me see him sometimes? And I swear, as soon as I’m done with all of this I’ll let you do whatever you want with me. I just need to be sure that he’ll be safe,” Barry pleaded. It wasn’t what Kravitz expected, looking pretty hesitant. 

“I do this, and you promise to turn yourself in?” he asked, and Barry nodded. 

“Yes, I just- I need to find my wife first. Just let me find her, take care of my son, and then- then I’m all yours,” he said, hoping beyond hope that this would work. 

After an agonizing few seconds that felt like hours, Kravitz nodded. 

“What’s his name?” he asked as Barry cautiously came towards him. The reaper had gotten rid of his scythe, and looked awkward as Barry placed the baby into his arms. 

“Angus,” he answered, moving some of the thin black hair Angus already had out of his face, letting his skeletal hand move to run over small pointed ears. “Hey pumpkin, I need to go for a little while, but I promise I’ll be back soon. Until then your, um,” he paused, looking up at the reaper hesitantly. Well, he said he kept his word, so he probably didn’t have to worry about him killing him just this second. “Your unckie Krav here will keep you safe, alright?” 

“Don’t call me that,” Kravitz said immediately, and Barry snorted. The laughter was short lived though, and when Barry looked back down at Angus he sighed again. 

“I love you so much Angus,” he said, and he knew he was too young for any of this to stick, but he hoped it did anyway. Moving back, he glanced up at the reaper again. “Thank you.” 

“Just keep up your end of the deal,” Kravitz said, and Barry nodded. Giving himself a moment to cast a quick teleport, he told himself that he made the right choice. 

He’d made the only choice.


	17. Angus- Godfather pt. 2

Angus was eight years old and, as his uncle always told him, was a very smart little boy. He was certainly smart enough to know when something was being kept from him. 

He didn’t get to see his dad very often. He visited sometimes, and it was always really fun when he did. He would stay for hours or even a few days and would spend almost all of it with Angus, playing with him or telling him stories or letting Angus tell him about stuff he and uncle Kravitz had been up to since he last visited. 

Uncle Kravitz didn’t hang out much whenever his dad was visiting, but Angus had always assumed it was because he got to see him all the time and his dad not so much. As he got older though, Angus started noticing something else. It was hard to pick up on at first, they were good at hiding it, even more so because they spent so little time together. 

He didn’t think his dad and his uncle liked each other very much. 

Angus knew his upbringing was weird. His dad being gone so often was only the start of it. That didn’t get into the fact that he was all ghosty, or the fact that his uncle could turn into a skeleton. When asked what his dad was doing leaving so much, he was just told that he was trying to find his mom. His dad talked about his mom a lot, but Angus had never met her. 

He also wasn’t sure if that was the only reason he was gone all the time. He was starting to think that there was more. 

His dad had just finished a visit. It had been fun, Angus had told him about Uncle Krav taking him down into town last week, and his dad gave him a book he picked up that can grab magic messages out of the air. He didn’t get to stay very long this time though, and Angus would have been disappointed. Well, he was disappointed, but he also had been waiting for this part. 

Every time his dad left, he and his uncle went off without him. Angus had figured they were just saying goodbye, but now he wasn’t so sure. Back before he noticed they didn’t like each other it made sense how long it would take. Now not so much. 

He wondered what they were talking about without him. 

Angus didn’t follow them right away, instead waiting a few agonizing minutes so that they might not notice him. Then he crept as quietly as he could to his uncle’s office. There was a big window in there to the front yard, and with the curtains drawn Angus could crack it open and hear what they were saying. 

“I know, okay? This is- I never thought it would take this long either, but I swear I’m getting closer,” his dad said. He sounded worried and frustrated. 

“Are you? This will be the _sixth_ body, I can only excuse so much and you know that,” his uncle said, and he sounded very frustrated. Angus had no idea what they were talking about though, what bodies? 

“I hate it too bud. I mean, for different reasons, but still. I’m not doing this for _fun,_ I just- I need more time,” his dad pleaded, and uncle Kravitz sighed. It was a very familiar sigh to Angus. 

“I can’t give you forever,” uncle Kravitz said, and Angus wasn’t sure how to describe how they were right now. He didn’t think they hated each other, it didn’t sound like that or like they were mad. They sounded tired and worried and annoyed, but not mad. 

“Well, neither will she, so you don’t gotta worry about that,” his dad said. She? Who was she? His mom was the only she they ever really talked about, her and the Raven Queen. 

“Right. Any updates on…?” 

“None. She’s doing something she doesn’t want me to know about. I don’t know how it relates to th͞e ͝r̛͝e͢l҉̷i̡̢c͢s̡ but it can’t be good,” his dad said, and Angus tilted his head to the side. What did he say? 

“Alright,” his uncle said, sounding tense. “Just… be careful. I don’t know how many more deaths I can let you get away with,” he said, and Angus’s ears pricked up at that. Deaths? What did that mean? 

“I will,” his dad said, and there had been a small stretch of time where Angus was worried his dad and his uncle hated each other. That didn’t last long though, even if it was clear they didn’t get along very well. The way his dad’s voice sounded right now was more proof that they didn’t hate each other. That and the worry that had been in his uncles voice as he told him to be careful. “Thanks bud. For everything.” 

“I should get inside before Angus starts getting impatient,” his uncle said, which was Angus’s clue to start heading back to his room. He wanted to keep listening, but he told himself this was enough for now. He didn’t want to get greedy and then get caught. He wouldn’t be able to listen again next time if he did that. 

He had plenty of things to figure out until then. 


	18. Taakitz- Sick

“I’m telling you, it’s not actually a cold,” Kravitz insisted once again, although the technicalities didn’t matter much to Taako. He just rolled his eyes, shoving the cup of hot tea into his even colder than usual hands. 

“Oh yeah, what do you call this again?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. 

“A curse,” Kravitz said, before having to quickly put the tea down on the side table so that he didn’t drop it as he fell into another fit of coughs. Hopefully that would be something the tea could help with once he actually drank it. 

“Cold or curse, if it coughs like a duck and sneezes like a duck it gets cozy sick food,” Taako insisted. Kravitz chuckled at that, quickly taking a drink afterwards to fight down some more coughs. He had several large quilts pulled up around him, and Taako started untangling one to climb into the bed with him. 

“I think that metaphor got away from you a little dear,” Kravitz said, shifting some to make more room for Taako. “And besides, the spell should only last a day or so,” he added. 

“Cool, that’s a whole day of doing nothing. And plus side, I don’t even have to worry about catching anything from your nasty ass,” Taako said, snuggling into Kravitz’s side. He could hear a small rumbling in his chest as he laughed, and even if it was a curse Taako would bet money on the honey he’d put in the tea helping to clear that up some. 

“Last I checked, you liked my ass,” Kravitz said, which got a snort out of Taako, rolling his eyes. 

“Drink your fucking tea before it gets cold,” was his only response, and he could see Kravitz smiling as he took another sip. 

“If you insist,” he said, and Taako nodded sharply at that. “and… thank you,” he added. Taako shifted into his side more so that Kravitz couldn’t see the downright sappy smile on his face. 

“Yeah, sure thing babe.” 


	19. taakitz- craig's list

Kravitz had answered the listing as a joke. He had assumed that said listing had been a joke. Now he was wondering if this was going to be the thing that got him murdered.

Reading it over again, it hadn't changed from when he looked at it five minutes ago.

_Listing: Fake Boyfriend To Avoid Jogging With Roommate Serious Responses Only_

_Additional details: my roommate keeps trying to make me go to the gym with him, so I told him I couldn't cause I have a date that day. It worked the first six times but now he's starting to get suspect. Especially because the dates are at 6am. Need a cute boy to stand in as a fake date. If you have a job that would require you to go on dates at fucking sunrise that is a plus. Will pay for breakfast, just need a few photos to throw off the scent_

Kravitz wasn't sure what possessed him to reply, other than the picture the user had posted was um, very nice. And it was funny.

The person, Taako he mentioned once they started talking, had asked for a picture of him back. Almost as soon as he sent it he was starting to make plans for a fake breakfast date, and at that point Kravitz felt too far gone to back out.

So here he was at 6am on a Friday, inside of the earliest opening coffee shop they could find. Kravitz was starting to think he got stood up (which somehow felt almost as bad as being murdered) when he saw Taako come in. He didn't have to scan around long before he caught sight of him, the place nearly empty.

"Oh good you're here and don't look like a murderer, things are looking up on cha boy's end," Taako said. Despite how early it was he certainly seemed to be dressed for a date.

"The murderers we were probably supposed to run into doing this are going to feel pretty awkward when they end up trying to kill each other at the same time," he joked, getting a surprised laugh out of Taako.

"Shit yeah, that's gonna lead to a lot of awkward exchanges at the annual cyber killer convention," he said, Taako giving him a very nice smile. "But yeah, thanks for doing this, lemme spot you breakfast and a cuppa Joe and we can grab some pics," he added. Kravitz nodded, following Taako up to the counter. Once they ordered they sat back down and Kravitz hadn't actually thought any of this through. He kinda figured he'd be dead by now.

"So uh, Taako, if you don't mind me asking, " he started, Taako nodding along, "why can't you just tell your roommate you don't want to go to the gym?" he asked, a little surprised when Taako groaned dramatically.

"Ugh, because he gets all sad and whiny about how we never hang out together and how it'll be fun and naturally I have a heart of gold and will eventually give in and fucking take him for his walk like the overgrown golden retriever that he is," he explained. Their food was called up at the counter at this point and Kravitz quickly jumped up to grab it. By the time he got back Taako already had his phone out.

"Ok that's fucking Instagram worthy right there," he said, taking a picture of Kravitz as he held the platter.

"You're not actually going to put that on Instagram are you? I mean you can if you want to, I have no idea how to use the site," he said. Taako seemed to think it over for a bit before shaking his head.

"Nah, these'll be for private use only," he said, winking for good measure. Which was certainly something.

As they ate Taako snapped a few more pictures, including one of a very cutesy kiss on the cheek. It was all a little ridiculous but by the end Kravitz was actually having fun.

And when they parted with Taako thanking him profusely again for the help he almost regretted not asking for a possible real follow up date.

He was pretty delighted when Taako called him back the next day, although he wasn't expecting him to sound so panicked.

"So uh small problem, nothing to freak out about," he said, immediately freaking Kravitz out.

"And uh what's that? Did your roommate not believe you?" he asked.

"No uh, he believed it a little too well and he showed a picture to my sister who showed it to her husband and uh do you happen to work with a Barry Bluejeans?" Taako said, the words all coming out in a rush. It took a few long moments for what Taako was saying to process in his head, but when it did he felt his eyes widen.

"Oh, um, yes. Yes I know him," he said.

"Yeah so my brother in law and sister are demanding I bring you over for dinner and I figure I should warn you before you get bombarded at work," Taako said, and Kravitz had to take a moment to take a deep breath before he responded.

"Should I bring a dessert?" He asked. There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end before Taako burst out laughing.

"Fuck, keep that up and I might have to upgrade you to fake fiancé," he said, and Kravitz couldn't help but grin at that.

This was fake, he knew it was fake.

But at least it was fun.


	20. Lup, Barry, Daveport- Tres Horny Swap

“Yes uh, I’m Lehman Kessler, that’s definitely me,” Barry said, and he was trying to remember why he had decided to volunteer for this position again. He was terrible at lying. Well, because it was either him or Davenport, and when it came down to picking Davenport had just stared him down until he cracked and volunteered. Which was usually the way he got out of doing anything unpleasant. 

“And I’m Lela Kessler!” Lup added excitedly, and the engineer raised an eyebrow at that. Barry already couldn’t remember his name, and he was pretty sure he just said it. 

“Your last name is also Kessler?” the engineer asked, and Barry could already feel this plan falling apart. 

“Yes, uh, I’m-” Lup said, and he could see her glance over at him. Sister definitely wouldn’t be believed, a more distant relative might be passable, cousin or something. That wasn’t what Barry cut in with though. 

“My wife. She’s uh, wife,” he said, immediately feeling like he wanted to die. 

“Yeah! Honeymooning it up in Neverwinter!” Lup jumped in, and she sounded excited. She was always excited though, Barry was pretty sure she was the only one who was actually looking forward to these deadly missions. The engineer nodded, turning towards Davenport next. 

“And you are?” 

“Diddly. I’m their chauffeur,” he said, as straight faced as possible. Barry almost cracked, only his internal panic from the previous lie keeping him from laughing. 

“A chauffeur... on a train?” the engineer asked, and Davenport nodded. 

“I have off until we get to Neverwinter,” he said, the engineer nodding at that. 

“Well then, Mrs. and Mr. Kessler, Diddly, welcome to the Rockport limited,” he said, and Barry felt more and more terrified as they got onto the train, giving up all their weapons on the way. Lup at least got to keep her umbrella, but he wasn’t feeling great going into this without his sword. Not that he was even that good with it. 

“Sorry, about that,” Barry whispered as they made their way into the main part of the train. To his surprise Lup suddenly wrapped herself around his arm, giving widely at him, and he could feel his face heating up. 

“Don’t even worry about it. This is gonna be fun, my dear husband,” she said, and as they went into the main chamber he could see the other people on this train. There weren’t a lot, some fancy looking kid, a really fucking beefy dwarf woman, and a human wizard. There was also the elf attendant, who had starting coming this way at the sight of them. 

Well, at least only a few people would be around to watch him die.


End file.
